The short-leg fieldsman often heard a whirr when he j bowled. The battle-worn wicketkeeper whose eyes j were hidden behind the sunglass was dead serious. « The man at slip chewed an anxious gum and eyed tha 4 ball intently, focusing on the blind spot that is createa 1

every time it pitches around leg-stump. What went 4 through the batsman's mind is anybody's guess but it , J “I would probably oscillate between pure trepidation' ;

j and the thought of not getting embarrassed.

k When Shane Keith Warne bowled, the world ( ■ waited.

j!; It pitched on leg-stump, spun, slid and slithered past the bat, much to everyone's relief and surprise. A

i deep breath later, the showman would be at it, talking Lto the umpire, the non-striker, eyeing the batsman \ f one last time before starting that slow death of a run- m up once again. He was no Michael Holding but some- f t times, batsmen wished they were facing a 90mph fast J I bowler instead ofhis leg spin.

t Warne was not just about the leg-spin, his full 5 1 gamut of trickery was enough to put any magician to [1 shame. Tossed the ball by Allan Border in his first away j Test, the blonde beach boy from Melbourne turned fl the game around in the space of 5.3 overs. It was an 1 ominous sign but it all came to a head at Old Trafford J the next year.

A gentle leg-break pitched on leg-stump and spun'

; unpredictably long, going past Mike Gatting's prod ] and hitting off-stump. It was Warne's first Ashes deliv- |

ery and was declared the Ball of the Century. Wouldn't 9 j ■ you be thinking he did it all too early and had a lot to ■ J ■ live up to? KM

t. Warne, over the next 14 years, produced one gre^T f delivery after another. And it was not just the magic 1 j balls. His rise slowly revived the art of leg-spin which * i was dying a rapid death after the fading away of Paki- j ' stan'sAbdul Qadir in the late 1980s.

ft Australia in the early 1990s were slowly bringing J out a team of battlers and Warne was in the thick of I things. Australia's rise had a lot to do with Warne's J prowess and as he added more to his armoury, win- 1 ning Tests started to become easier for Alan Border, 1

'. MarkTaylor, Steve Waugh and later, Ricky Ponting.

Though he took the most wickets under the last • captain,WarnewasmostcomfortableunderTaylor.The Jj K combination of Warne, Taylor and Ian Healy stands in I I line with the Ian Chappell-Rod Marsh-Dennis Lillee । J j packthatruledAustraliancricketinthe 1970s.

In the Ashes of 1994-95, it was only a matter of tin^BH before Warne took England by the throat. Bowling " I mainly from around the wicket on the last day, Warne ; ; finished with 8-71 in the second innings; "They [bowl- a ing figures] truly told the story ofWarne's brilliance,"' ■ ■ wroteWisden.

It was not just Brisbane but all over the world tha^H Warne dominated proceedings. I Ie did have his neme^H ses in Sachin Tendulkar, Carl Hooper and Navjot Singl^H Sidhu but still, he was evergreen. In 2002, a boilin^H Sharjah was the venue for Warne to give a true master- ■ 4 piece ofhis perseverance. Time after time, he bowle<|M ( beautiful sliders and outfoxed every Pakistani bats^M 1 man he encountered.

He ended with 708 wickets and as usual, timed it a , pprfectly, finishing off a 5-0 Ashes thrashing. A once- * in-a-generation player, another Warne would be hard ! to come by.

i --MohammadIsam , .... .